


Wait So Long

by perfectpro



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Happy Ending, Kid Fic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, let them be happy for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 13:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8163673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectpro/pseuds/perfectpro
Summary: Let it never be said that Kent Parson doesn’t work for what he wants. Trembling, Kent gets off his knee, but he doesn’t close the ring box. “I don’t want to win another Cup alone. I don’t want to win another Cup without you,” he explains, and it’s a confession if it’s anything. He doesn’t know how to make it not true.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It was brought to my attention that I've never written anything that gives Kent and Jack a happy ending, and they deserve one. Consider this fic my love letter to this pairing.
> 
> Title from the Trampled by Turtles song of the same name. 
> 
>  
> 
> _I could never pretend that I don't love you / You could never pretend that I'm your man_

Kent always knew they were building towards something, but it’s not until after he has the Cup in his hands that he realizes what it is, what it’s always been. Jack is across the ice, his teammates filing through the doors, but he holds Kent’s gaze as carefully and triumphantly as Kent holds thirty four pounds of silver.

Their families are here, are watching them with little restraint if any. Kent’s mom and sister will flood onto the ice, Bob and Alicia will meet Jack in the visitor’s locker room, and they’ll all get together tomorrow night. Because he and Jack agreed already, decided that’s what would be best when they realized they’d be playing each other in the finals. No use in seeing each other the night of and just getting upset.

He passes the Cup off to Swoops and ruffles the kid’s hair, because no matter how old Swoops gets he’s still going to be Kent’s rookie. His stomach churns, though, and even the sharp sound of Kelly’s shriek can’t fully draw him back into the moment when Jack finally ducks through the doors.

“You played so well!” Kelly shouts, and he hoists her off the ground for a few seconds as he turns and looks for their mom, edging her way beside Jeff and his family.

“Thanks, squirt,” he says, setting her back on her feet. “How’d you like that goal, huh? Scored it just for you.”

Grinning whole-heartedly, Kelly laughs. “It was awesome, Kenny. Looked like the kind of thing from a movie,” she babbles, stepping aside to let their mom through and then proceeding to recap the entire game, like she’s done for the past two Stanley Cup winning games she attended in Vegas. She hadn’t come for his first Cup win, because she’d been sixteen and their mom hadn’t really wanted her to see how they celebrated in Vegas.

Four Stanley Cups, and this is the first one where it hasn’t felt like enough. Kent smiles and tucks them under his arms, watching his teammates each take their lap with the Cup. It’s what he’s spent all season working for, what he’s spent every season working for, and yet… It’s not everything. Not yet.

-x-

All through the night he feels absent. He’s happy, he’s overjoyed, but he keeps thinking back to how Jack held his gaze and then broke it. He doesn’t want to wait a full day to see Jack again, even it is what they agreed on. When they talked about it, Kent hadn’t thought he’d feel like this, cleaved open and aching.

A full day had seemed reasonable. Kent had considered how much time he’d want by himself if Jack were to win, and Jack considered how much time he’d want to himself if Kent were to win, and they worked from there, trying to find a compromise that would still leave them with a relationship when everything was said and done. It had been a good idea, a reasonable idea at the time. Bob told them how proud of them he was for thinking ahead.

He gives Jack the night, goes home to his apartment and tries desperately to sleep in his bed that normally feels fine. It feels fine, because it’s not like Jack’s here often enough for it to feel like he should be here. But he should be here, Jack should be here, not in some stupid hotel room, and Kent is too used to the empty space beside him. He just wants to be warm.

-x-

In the morning, he’s still cold in Vegas in June, and he digs through his sock drawer, first pulling out a fuzzy pair Kelly gave him for Christmas years ago, then fishing out a small black box he’s had for about a month. He bought it before playoffs, figured he’d ask when both of their seasons ended, maybe preseason.

Getting to the hotel is easy, but Jack hadn’t given him his room number and it takes several minutes and a few pictures of them back in Juniors to convince the girl at the desk that he’s really Kent Parson, and he’s really here to see Jack Zimmermann, see, they’ve been friends for years.

There were years where they weren’t friends, years where they weren’t even speaking, but they’re over that now, and Kent couldn’t be more thankful.

Kent knocks on the door louder than maybe strictly necessary, but it’s early and he doesn’t know whether Jack will actually be awake, so he ignores the people who halfway glare at him as they walk down the hall, waiting for Jack to answer.

“What the fuck,” Jack mumbles, one hand wiping the sleep from his eyes as he holds the door with the other. He blinks once, reality slotting into place as he takes in the sight of Kent at the door. “Kenny.”

And Kent just freezes, because he’s an idiot. They agreed on a day apart, a full day, and he doesn’t just get to interrupt Jack’s time by himself because he needs him or something stupid like that. “Hey,” he breathes, quiet, unsure of how to admit that he’s made a mistake, how to check that this is still okay.

Jack holds the door open after glancing down the hallway to make sure no one is there to see them, and when Kent squeezes by as the door closes, Jack presses close, pulling Kent to his shoulder, and Kent exhales slowly. “I’m glad you’re here,” he confesses, and Kent chokes on his own relief.

“I couldn’t… I love you,” Kent says, apropos of nothing.

Moving them towards the bed, Jack keeps him close. “It was strange sleeping alone last night,” Jack admits, that more than anything is what helps Kent actually get the courage to follow through.

“I don’t want to sleep alone anymore,” Kent starts, scrambling through his pockets for the ring. Fuck, he just had it, he kept toying with it nervously throughout the drive over, it has to be on him somewhere. “Fuck, I mean, no, I meant that. I just mean…”

When his fingers come into contact with the box, he grins triumphantly and drops onto one knee, accidentally pushing Jack onto the bed. “Sorry, sorry, wait, I just have to,” he tries, fumbling the words and the box as he draws it out of his pocket.

“Is that…?” Jack asks, sitting up on the bed with his eyes blown wide with surprise.

Jack sounds nervous. Fuck, Kent is down on one knee, and Jack sounds nervous. Fuck, this was the worst plan in the history of ever, but Kent doesn’t do things half-assed, so he powers through and hopes that Jack will be able to forgive him for asking when all of this is said and done. “Will you marry me?” Kent blurts, snapping the box open as he tries to look at the floor and away from this surefire train wreck.

A beat, then two, of silence. Kent looks up warily, where Jack is watching him with a guarded expression. “Kent,” he starts, stopping when he doesn’t have anything else to say.

Let it never be said that Kent Parson doesn’t work for what he wants. Trembling, Kent gets off his knee, but he doesn’t close the ring box. “I don’t want to win another Cup alone. I don’t want to win another Cup without you,” he explains, and it’s a confession if it’s anything. He doesn’t know how to make it not true.

Jack’s face crumbles, and he reaches out in a way that can only be described as automatic, instinctive. Grasping his hand into Kent’s shirt, he yanks the shorter man forward as a breathless laugh escapes his lips. “God, yes,” he agrees, breaking out into a smile.

Frozen, Kent goes easily, sprawling across Jack’s bed with him, finally managing, “Yes?”

“Yes,” Jack repeats, adjusting them so that his lips can find Kent’s by the path of least resistance.

Kent smiles into the kiss, closing his eyes, relief flooding him. “Yes,” he mumbles finally, falling back into the man he’s been falling into for years. It feels so good to let go.

-x-

“I love you,” Jack says abruptly. It’s not that he doesn’t say it often, it’s just that he’s learned it’s worth saying when he feels it. He always feels it, but it’s worth saying when it becomes this overwhelming feeling that grounds him.

Kent twists a bit, grinning wide and open. They don’t have to protect themselves from each other anymore, and Jack will never not be thankful for that. “I love you, too,” he whispers, burying his face in the crook of Jack’s neck, where Jack can feel Kent’s smile resting on his skin. “Remind me to call my agent tomorrow,” he requests.

“How come?” Jack asks, trying to think back and remember anything Kent might need to talk to his agent about. 

Smothering a yawn, Kent rolls and arches an eyebrow. “Zimms, we’re going to be married. I’d kind of like to play on the same team,” he announces as though this is something that should have been obvious.

Maybe it should have been, Jack realizes. If they’re on different teams, they’ll really only get to see each other in the offseason, same as they do now. It’s not nearly enough time. His mom has talked often enough about how hard it was to work with his father’s schedule when they were first married, Jack can’t imagine how they’d work around two NHL schedules. “Oh,” he comments, a little winded at the realization. “I’ll call my agent, too, then.”

“How come?” Kent asks, propping himself up on an elbow and trying to make himself more awake for this conversation.

“Well, if I’m going to try to play for the Aces, he should probably know,” Jack says, reaching over for his phone to check the time. He sets it down when Kent jerks and shakes his head, automatically rejecting the idea. “No, Kent, I’m not going to have you move for me. You love your team, you’re their captain,” he protests.  
Kent sits up and runs a hand through his hair restlessly. “I do love my team, but I’m not going to make you move to Vegas. It’s literally a desert, you’d hate it here and you’d never forgive me.”

Jack adjusts himself so that he’d full on facing Kent, because he has a pretty good idea of what this is about. “You don’t have to give anything up to prove that you’re committed to this,” he starts, bulldozing onwards when Kent opens his mouth to object. “I know that this is something you care about; you don’t have to move away from your team to show me that. It makes more sense for me to be traded – I’ve only been on the Falconer’s for six years; you’ve been on the Aces for twelve, and you’ve been their captain for ten. I don’t want you to give that up.”

He hates when Kent does this, tries to sacrifice things that don’t need to be sacrificed as though they’re things that Jack will take as proof that this relationship matters to Kent. Jack doesn’t want anything from Kent like that, doesn’t want those things to add up over time to be reasons for Kent to hold a grudge against him.

He knows that this matters to Kent, he’s known since Kent came to him after that terrible Stanley Cup final three years ago now, and Kent hadn’t so much as blinked when he’d asked, when you finish taking your victory lap, would you want to hang out at some point? Jack hasn’t doubted Kent and his commitment since he woke up blearily in a hospital bed to find his best friend at his side.

Eyebrows at his hairline, Kent waits patiently for Jack to finish. “Are you done yet?” he asks, rolling his eyes when Jack motions for him to go on.

“I love my team, and you know that. But like you said, I’ve been on the Aces for eight years, and the guys I joined with aren’t the same guys I’m playing with now. We’ve had a lot of turnover recently, it’s a lot of rookies and guys coming out of the AHL.” He frowns, as though Jack is the one being particularly stupid about this. “Besides, Vegas isn’t really a great place to raise a family.”

Frozen, Jack takes a moment to be sure that he heard Kent correctly. Vegas isn’t really a great place to raise a family. He swallows and then manages, “You want kids?”

It’s not that it’s never occurred to him that he could at one point be a father. It’s just that it’s not something he’s given an extensive amount of thought. And being a father with Kent… It’s something he’s never let himself think about, something like a dream within a dream.

Kent pauses, blinking once. “Uh, yeah,” he confesses, rubbing a hand self-consciously on the back of his neck. “I mean, I’d kind of like kids. Wouldn’t you?” He’s blushing, the kind that floods his cheeks and makes the freckles on his nose stand out in even starker contrast. Jack can’t believe that he’s this lucky, that he gets all of this and more. Some days, it seems like a fluke that he’s managed to make it this far. Times like this, it’s hard to believe there was a time when he didn’t know how much better everything was going to get.

The longer Jack stays quiet, the darker Kent’s blush gets. “We don’t have to have kids,” Kent offers suddenly, like he thinks that’s what’s holding Jack up about everything.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jack says suddenly, leaning across the space between them to pull Kent close. “I want kids,” he announces, and he’s starting to picture Kent with a baby balanced on one hip, trying to make airplane noises as he lowers a spoon through the air. He’s never wanted something so much before.

“Oh,” Kent says dumbly, cheeks pink. He’s the biggest idiot in the world, and Jack gets to marry him.

“You want to move to Providence so we can have a place to raise our kids,” Jack says, just checking everything, because it’s best to be sure. He doesn’t want for Kent to give up Vegas, but if Kent genuinely wants to give up Vegas, that’s different.

Shrugging, Kent nods. “We could raise them wherever. I just thought Providence might be nice,” he says, like he’s trying to avoid sounding as attached to this as he clearly is.

Jack wants to kiss him, so he leans forward and does. “Okay, you can talk to your agent tomorrow,” he agrees, because it’s almost too good to be true. He has so many good things in his life. “I love you. I just, I really love you.” It’s important for Kent to know that, to know Jack didn’t expect for them to not be in Vegas.

Kent blinks, a little surprised. “I really, really love you too,” he answers without missing a beat, smile lighting up his face. He moves forward to kiss Jack once more, unable to stop his smile from forming.

-x-

Jack won’t lie: he never saw this coming. The NHL career, sure. The wedding even, he’d had vague images of. Black tuxedo, subdued bachelor’s party on his end, all of that made sense.  
Just, when he thought about his wedding, he never thought too hard about the person he’d be marrying. When he’d first moved to Providence, there had been half thoughts about it. He and Bitty had been so happy, and he wasn’t a stranger to thinking thoughts of what they’d be able to do one day.

After three and a half years, though, they’d both given all they had to give. Jack doesn’t know what else they could have done to avoid that ending, both of them exhausted and aching with no better option in front of them.

In Juniors, he’d had a kind of love for Kent. The kind of love that every teenager in a strange place feels for his best friend, that desperate closeness that leaves no room for personal space. At certain points, he’s convinced that they were just trying to become the same person so that they wouldn’t have to be separated after the draft. Then, he’d never thought about getting married to Kent. The idea would have been so strange as to border on absurd.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get here,” he confesses to Shitty. It’s true in a way that he’s almost uncomfortable with: he remembers being eighteen in vivid flashes, parties and pills and panic attacks in the bathroom. He remembers counting out the exact number of pills that should have been a lethal dosage, remembers throwing two more in for good measure.

Shitty nods at him, doesn’t seem surprised by this information. “You deserve people who love you,” he says freely, because Shitty didn’t know him when his addiction controlled him, doesn’t know how untrue his words have the potential to be.

It’s a good day, a great day, so Jack lets himself believe that. “I just mean… I’m in the NHL. I’m out. I’m getting married. It’s like I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, because this can’t be it.” There has to be something that’s gone wrong, that’s going to go wrong. It seems unfair that he should get so much.

“Well, chin up, buddy. This is it. In two days, you’ll be a married man,” Shitty informs him, raising his beer bottle and clinking it softly against Jack’s own. Softly, he comments, “I always hoped I’d be your best man, but I always… Whenever I thought about it, I pictured you getting married to Bits.”

Jack can’t find fault with him for that, because he thought the same thing himself a few years ago. “Yeah, I guess I thought that, too, a while back.” Before things turned strained and awkward, before each conversation was a minefield that had to be carefully navigated. Before simply coming home felt like gearing up for battle. Sometimes people end, and Jack has enough distance from it now that he doesn’t have a problem admitting that’s true.

“I was worried when you started dating Kent,” Shitty says tentatively, like this is supposed to come as a surprise to Jack.

Jack knew as soon as he told Shitty that Shitty wasn’t going to be Kent’s biggest fan, but that’s been two and a half years ago now. Shitty’s also had a year to adjust since Kent and Jack first announced the engagement.

“So you’re telling me all those times you tried to get Bittle and I back together weren’t just shows of support for Parse and I, eh?” he asks, feigning shock and laughing when Shitty looks away innocently. “No, I know. We’re good for each other, though. Now, we are,” he clarifies.

Serious, Shitty nods. “It took me a while to see that, but I do. You guys are good, and I’m happy to be here for it. Really, I’m so proud of you, and of Parse. It takes a stubborn motherfucker to love you like you deserve.”

Jack flushes, gladly allowing himself to be distracted from the conversation at hand when his phone rings.

“Hey, Kenny,” he answers, turning away from the bar so that he’ll be better able to hear.

“Zimms,” Kent slurs back immediately, “baby, I love you.”

Jack glances at the clock and internally rolls his eyes. It’s nearing two in the morning, which means it’s eleven in Vegas, and Kent’s already trashed. Sounds like the Aces have taken their duty of throwing Kent’s bachelor party pretty seriously. “I love you, too,” he answers, smile stretching across his lips easily.

“Tha’s good, ‘cause we’re getting’ married,” Kent giggles, and Jack relaxes the slightest bit at the words. “Baby, we’re gonna be married in… It’s… Ten fifteen, and six thirty… Soon,” Kent declares, apparently having given up on calculating the hours until their wedding what with the time different. Plus, he’s pretty clearly intoxicated.

Taking pity on his fiancé, Jack does the mental math for both of them. He doesn’t have to account for the time difference, so it’s easier. “Just under forty-two hours,” he confirms.

When Kent had agreed to a bachelor party in Vegas, Jack had insisted that it not be held the actual night before the wedding. He’s seen The Hangover, and he doesn’t trust the Aces to be able to find Kent on the roof of their hotel with enough time to still make it back for the wedding.

Laughing, Kent announces to the bar that he’s surely in, “Forty-two’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything!” Closer to the speaker, he says in a slightly quieter voice, a voice that’s surely intended for only Jack’s ears even with the volume that he’s talking in, “You’re my answer to life, the universe, and everything. Forty-two hours, until we’re man and wi… Man. We’re going to be man and man.”

“That we are,” Jack agrees easily, nodding to Shitty when his friend turns to check that everything’s okay. “It’s Kent,” he clarifies.

Shitty grins and raises his bottle, leans over into Jack’s space and asks into the speaker, “Is he talking you out of getting cold feet?”

“I don’t have cold feet!” Kent yelps, immediately on the defensive. “I’ve been in love with you for fourteen years, I have the opposite of cold feet about this, baby, baby, come on,” he pleads, and Jack nudges Shitty away as he goes to keep his fiancé calm.

“I know, Kenny,” Jack assures him. He wonders where Kent even is, if none of his teammates have found him so far and taken the phone. “I love you, bud.”

There’s a pause and then Kent declares, “You know that’s the weirdest term of endearment, right? I’m not Canadian, ‘bud’s a weird friend kind of term. In New York, that’s a slur against assholes who cut me off in traffic.” He giggles, slurring some words just far enough away that Jack can’t hear him.

Rolling his eyes, Jack asks, “Are you having a good time? Enjoying your last moments as a single man?”

“I’m going to enjoy married life a bit more, I think,” Kent says, voice laden with innuendo. “And we’ve been drinking Long Island iced teas all night, which’s weird, ‘cause we’re not in Long Island. Why aren’t we in Long Island?”

There’s a shuffling noise, and Jack waits patiently until someone else picks up the phone, and then he hears, “Zimmermann, it’s Swoops. How’s it hanging in Boston?”

“It’s good,” Jack says warily, thinking about how drunk Kent sounded and how early it still in is in their night. “I’m guessing things are good in Vegas, from the sound of everything.”

“Things are definitely good,” Swoops agrees easily. “We may or may not have instituted a drinking game for every time Kent feels the need to express his undying love for you. There are two shots waiting for him as soon as we hang up here.”

That does help explain it. “Long Island iced teas?” Jack presses, because really. They should know better than that.

“The bachelor’s drink of choice. Giving him one more night to let loose before you tie him down. That’s how Jeff put it or something. He’s doing fine, though, we’re keeping an eye on him. I guess you guys are winding down over there, since it’s getting kind of late.”

Jack and Shitty have already decided to head out after they finish their drinks, so Jack agrees. “You’d better get my future husband back to me in the exact condition I last saw him in,” he informs the Aces winger.

“He’ll be a little hungover, no worse for the wear. I’ll let Kent say goodbye,” Swoops says, moving through people before saying something too lowly for Jack to catch.

“Kent, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay, babe?” Jack asks, raising his voice a little to be sure Kent hears him.

“I love you,” Kent answers, easy as anything, and Jack lets himself relax and smile at hearing his favorite words. Even knowing that Kent will have to take another shot because of it, it’s worth the headache that Kent will undoubtedly wake up with come morning.

“Love you, too. Night,” Jack says, and he waits until the line goes dead before he actually hangs up.

-x-

Jack hadn’t thought about it much more after he and Kent had already discussed it. They both wanted to hyphenate, and Jack hadn’t felt much beyond relief. The Zimmermann name is no longer a weight to him, not his burden to carry anymore, and he wants to keep it, to show that he doesn’t have to hide who he is.

He wants to add Parson to it, carry a piece of Kent with him, and he sends off the paperwork after they’ve talked about it. Some part of him is curiously excited, thinking about the new jerseys they’ll get, Kent’s first jersey with the Falconers.

He’s always thought Kent looked best in blue, anyway.

So when he actually gets the call that their jerseys are in, he sends Kent a text and swings by the house to pick him up. It’ll make a good picture, the two of them next to each other, their initials and Zimmermann-Parson reading across their backs. A statement, that they’re in this together, that ten years couldn’t pull them apart, that they won’t let anything come between them.

“Hey, guys,” Georgia greets them, moving aside so they can step into her office. “They came in this morning. I thought it was a little strange at first, but I think the press are going to love it.”

“The press?” Jack asks, watching as Kent opens the box and tosses Jack a jersey after checking the sizing.

“I mean, they had a field day when we got married, so I figured this wouldn’t be that different,” Kent comments, grinning at the blue and white uniform in front of him.

God knows that’s true. Jack shrugs and flips his jersey over, because it feels like a long time coming. Like maybe they were always heading for this, ending up getting detoured a few times, but they’re finally where they were meant to be. Zimmermann-Parson stares up at him through careful stitching, something permanent.

Kent finishes investigating the Falconers logo on the front and turns his own jersey around, smiling as he does so. He looks happy, is the thing. Not that he never looks happy, but sometimes Jack sees Kent happy and wonders how much time they wasted apart.

“Why isn’t my initial on here?” Kent asks suddenly, curious, and Jack looks down to his own jersey.

It’s a good question. Unless their initials are on the jerseys, it’ll only be their numbers that separate them. It’s also just easier for sports announcers to have as many differentiating factors between players as possible. Jack’s about to voice the same concern when Kent holds up his jersey so that Jack can read the back of it.

Number 90, Parson-Zimmermann, it reads.

They didn’t. There’s no way.

“Kent,” Jack starts, drawing his eyebrows together as he looks back to his own jersey. Nope, nothing changed, Zimmermann-Parson just like he’d expected. Like he’d assumed Kent would have expected.

God, they’re so stupid. Really, they have to be the only couple this has ever happened to – who else wouldn’t check to make sure they agreed on the order of their last names after deciding to hyphenate? Jack covers his mouth with his hand as he tries to muffle his laughter.

“What? Why aren’t our initials on here?” Kent asks again, moving over and leaning to see the back of Jack’s jersey. He pauses and does the same thing that Jack did, glancing between the jerseys briefly to confirm his suspicions.

Georgia stands in front of them, giggling slightly. “You… You didn’t know?” she asks, looking entirely too pleased.

“I… You know, we always say that communication is the most important part of our relationship,” Kent muses, chuckling under his breath, “and then something like this happens. Good communication, Zimms.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jack returns, elbowing his husband good-naturedly. He pictures them out on the ice, their last names in different orders for everyone to see. Probably a more entertaining picture than what he’s previously had in mind. “Of course I kept my last name first, that’s my last name.”

Rolling his eyes, Kent huffs a laugh. “Yeah, okay, but P comes way before Z. I was giving you an opportunity to jump like a third of the way up the alphabet, and you left me hanging.”

Left him hanging? Only Kenny, really. Jack looks between their shirts once more, unable to stop the laughter that bubbles up at the sight. “It gives something for people to talk about,” he decides. They would have talked about it anyway, but at least this way there’s an excuse. And they’ll be talking about his and Kent’s decision to commit to each other, so there are worse things. A lot of worse things, but Jack doesn’t mind this.

Georgia nods, still grinning a little. “That it does. So you guys really didn’t know before this?”

“Not a clue,” Kent answers for the both of them, his mouth stretched into a smile from the sheer ridiculousness of it all. 

Folding their shirts up and getting them back in the box, Jack shakes his head. “We would have kept it the same if we’d known. That probably would have been simpler, I guess. Right, Parson-Zimmermann?” he teases Kent, enjoying the contrast between his husband’s blush and freckles.

“Right, Zimmermann-Parson,” Kent agrees, waving to George as they make their way out of her office.

-x-

“Kent, you speak French, right?” one of the PR girls asks him, maybe Mandy or Miranda, coming up to him as she holds a clipboard to her chest with her chin and balances three small pairs of skates in one hand.

“Little rusty, but I get by,” he answers, thinking of the years he spent in Rimouski reviewing flashcards with Jack and listening to CD after CD of French. He hasn’t practiced much recently outside of visiting Jack’s relatives in Quebec, but he does alright by it. So far, all potential language-related instances of embarrassment at family gatherings have been avoided.

She nods, glancing behind her. “Great, do you have a second for us to borrow you for a Little Falconers event?” she asks. She offers up an apologetic smile and motions back towards the hall that leads to the rink. “I know it’s short notice, but Marty was supposed to be here, only one of his little girls got sick, so he had to stay home.”

Kent doesn’t exactly know what he’ll be doing, but he loves Little Falconers events, so it’s not a problem. “You guys could have scheduled Jack and I for this stuff. Little Falconers events are our favorite,” he comments.

They really are. Kent will literally clear parts of his schedule for them, just because the kids are so much fun. They’ll skate around for an hour or so and then Kent signs things and occasionally watches tiny children have to be encouraged to come up to him before their moms apologize for them being shy. A treasure, really. His Snapchat story gets overloaded every time he helps with one of the events. Double so when Jack helps, too.

“I know we’ve been keeping you guys pretty busy with other PR stuff. The Falcs TV stuff you shot was really good, by the way,” she remembers, grinning. “I forgot to say, thanks for doing this.”

“It’s no problem,” Kent answers, because it’s really not. “Why do you guys need someone who speaks French, anyway?”

Miranda, or Mandy, or whoever she is, smiles at him abruptly. “A little girl’s foster mom got in contact with us, apparently she loves hockey, but she mainly speaks French. We thought it’d be best if there was a player who could speak that to help put her at ease.”

Makes sense. Kent nods along, following her as she opens the door to the rink. On the ice, dozens of little kids are doing their best to remain upright on their skates, the little troopers that they are. They’re all wearing some kind of Falconer’s jersey, and when a kid goes by wearing a Zimmermann-Parson jersey, Kent nobly resists the urge to cart the kid off for forever, that is just too damn cute.

When he looks off the ice, Miranda (Mandy? Mirandy?) is kneeling down by the bench, talking to a woman in a lowered voice. She turns away after a moment and smiles, motioning for him to come closer.

She scoots over the tiniest bit, revealing a tiny little girl with blonde hair, who is staring warily at Kent as she rocks her skates back and forth on the ground. Her blue eyes are wide, and she tugs on the woman’s hand quickly.

“Thank you so much, Molly, Mr. Parson-Zimmermann,” the woman says, running a soothing hand over the little girl’s hair. “We’re so grateful for the accommodations.”

“It’s no problem,” Molly (Molly!) assures her, smiling widely before turning to Kent. “Kent, this is Gabrielle.”

Kneeling down, Kent offers the little girl his hand and a smile. “Je m’appelle Kent,” he introduces himself, and Gabrielle grins wholeheartedly at him in response.

-x-

“She was literally the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kent declares later that day, toweling his hair off in the bathroom. He turns the fan off to make sure that Jack hears him when he again announces, “The cutest.”

“I’m sure she was cute,” Jack calls from their bedroom over the sound of the TV. “But to be fair, you always talk about how cute the kids are.” It’s true; Kent will spend days after Little Falconers events reminiscing about how small and adorable the children were.

Poking his head through the door, Kent adopts a mock-scowl. “Okay, yeah, but she was actually the cutest. Check the camera rolls on my phone, she should be the most recent one.” He shakes out his hair and laughs when Jack freezes for a moment while droplets of water fling themselves across the room.

Jack reaches for Kent’s phone on the nightstand dutifully, inputting the lock code and pulling up the camera. “She is cute,” he comments, grinning absent-mindedly at the image. “She actually kind of looks like you.”

“She does not,” Kent retorts, hanging his towel on the door and making his way through the room. He squints at the image, tilting his head considering. “I mean, she’s blonde. And cute as hell, so, actually, yeah, she does look like me. Good eyes, babe.”

With a roll of his eyes, Jack sets the phone aside and moves up the bed so that he’s leaning on the headboard. “Glad you found a way to keep yourself entertained while I was gone for the day.”

Kent nods, digging through his drawer before pulling out a pair of boxers. “Yeah, they pulled me aside as I was heading out, needed a French speaker. I doubt I was as good as you could have been, but she’s barely even five years old. Even I can manage that level of conversation. How was golf with your dad?” he asks, pulling them on and climbing onto the bed as well.

Expression oddly frozen, Jack responds, “Gold was good.” He pauses, glancing around as though he’s missing something. “She spoke French?”

“Yeah, well, she speaks some English, too, but her foster mom said that her English isn’t as good when she’s overwhelmed. Hear that? Apparently I’m overwhelming to some people,” Kent comments, trying to look as angelic as possible.

“You’re something,” Jack says without heat, reaching over and finally pulling Kent towards him, tired of waiting. “When’s the next Little Falconers event? Are we scheduled for it?” he asks, trying to think of his calendar for the upcoming months.

Kent stretches and rolls over to grab blindly at the lamp until he finally manages to turn it off. “Probably. We always volunteer for that sort of thing,” he comments, rolling back into Jack and curling up as he adjusts the comforter over them. “Night, babe.”

“Night,” Jack returns, leaning down to kiss the top of Kent’s head.

-x-

Two days before the next Little Falconers event, Kent gets a call from Molly checking that he and Jack will still be able to make it.

“That little girl, Gabrielle, will be coming back, and Tina was so impressed with how you were with you. She specifically asked if you’d be there,” Molly says, sounding pleased.

“Oh.” It wasn’t that Kent didn’t think Gabrielle had enjoyed herself, he just hadn’t remembered her foster mom noticing him much other than the conversation they’d had before leaving. “Yeah, Jack and I are coming. He’s been looking forward to it all week,” he elaborates, winking when Jack glances up from the kitchen counter.

“Like you don’t like hanging around the kids,” Jack snips, but he doesn’t deny it.

Kent waves him away, turning away to the conversation at hand. “I can totally hang out with Gabrielle again, no problem. She was actually the cutest, and I think she was warming up to me by the end,” he says proudly. She’d been a little shy at first, even after discovering that Kent spoke French, but after a couple of laps around the rink she was almost babbling at him.

Molly agrees quickly, “Definitely! It really made an impression on them. Okay, I just wanted to check up on that. I’ll call you the day of so you can meet up with her again. And Jack, too, if he wants.”

“He’ll definitely want to,” Kent tells her, tossing the phone on the couch after hanging up.

-x-

“She seemed a little shy this morning,” Molly says to them first thing, walking over the same area where Kent met Gabrielle the first time. “Tina said she’s fairly shy around new people the first time, so it might take her a little bit to get used to you, Jack.”

Jack nods at the warning. He was a shy kid himself, he doesn’t fault the young children who are the same way.

Molly’s cautious words don’t seem to matter, though, because as soon as Gabrielle leans around her foster mom’s legs to see them coming, there’s a small blonde child hurtling full speed towards them on skates.

“Kent!” she cries, and Jack watches with wonder as she goes to cling to Kent’s leg and he scoops her up instinctively, lifting her out with a smile.

“Gabrielle!” Kent exclaims, grinning widely as he turns to hold her out for Jack to see. “Gabrielle, this is my husband, Jack,” he introduces them, pronouncing the French words carefully.

It makes Jack remember helping Kent with French when they were sixteen, holed up in one of their bedrooms, continuously repeating phrases until Kent got the pronunciation right. “Bonjour, Gabrielle,” he greets her, watching as her face lights up when she looks at him.

Molly chuckles next to them, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder and drawing his attention to her for a moment. “Looks like you guys have got this. I’ll check back in on you later.” She says goodbye to Gabrielle’s foster mom before skating over to another group of children on the ice.

Jack looks over to Kent and Gabrielle for a moment before making his way to Tina. “It’s nice to meet you,” he starts, pausing when her eyebrows draw together momentarily.

“Oh, I don’t speak French!” Tina says, laughing a little. “That’s a part of what makes this hard, I’ll admit.”

Jack nods curiously, and then tries hesitantly, “If you don’t mind me asking, why is she staying with you, then?”

Keeping her eyes on Kent and Gabrielle on the rink, Tina answers, “There aren’t a lot of foster parents in the system. I don’t know the stats, but I bet almost none of them speak French. And Gabby speaks English well enough, it’s just harder for her when she gets excited or overwhelmed. We get by just fine.”

He makes a mental note to ask his mom about his language skills when he was a child, whether he had trouble with one language when he couldn’t focus on two things at once. “Is French her first language?”

Tina nods, glancing over to him. “Yes, her case worker said she can’t have been learning English for more than a year or so, when she came to the US.” She offers up a half-smile. “The first week we had her, my husband put on a hockey game and she was glued to the screen. I started working with Little Falconers a little while after, trying to figure if it would be realistic for her to get involved.” Leaning onto the rail, she calls out, “Gabby, be careful!”

Gabrielle stops from where she’s turning, nearly falling over, stumbling as Kent reaches out to steady her. After a moment, she calls out in English, “I’m fine,” and then turns back to Kent.

“I just worry,” Tina says, mostly to herself, propping her chin up with her hands. “You can go out with them, don’t mind me. It was nice talking to you, Jack.”

Jack nods, gives her a smile, and pushes off the wall. He heads over to where Kent is skating with Gabrielle, talking to her in careful French about her kindergarten class. When Kent looks up at him, holding Gabrielle’s hand so she doesn’t fall, Jack can’t help his answer grin and the look that he’s sure is love-struck.

-x-

Jack is the first one to voice it, in the resulting months that play like a highlight reel in front of his mind. He doesn’t know how to bring it up, doesn’t know how to voice this thing that he is almost afraid to want.

Every Little Falconers event that they go to, Kent is swoop Gabrielle and entertain her during the skates. Even after she’s not overwhelmed, after she’s speaking English fine around the other children and even around the other Falconers, Kent still migrates to her to check in on her and how comfortable she is.

Gabrielle tends to stick close to him, too, when she can. She’ll stay by Kent’s side or skate close to Jack, shy and opening up after he’s talked to her quietly for a while. She’s incredibly endearing is the thing, energetic yet polite when she clearly pulls herself back to remember to be, kind to the other children and enthusiastic about being there in general. It is so easy to be happy when Gabrielle is skating on the edges of things, spinning as she hums to herself.

“When do you want to have kids?” he asks Kent, not bothering to beat around the bush. They’re in the middle of dinner, but Jack doesn’t really know when an opportunity for this conversation will ever present itself exactly right.

Kent freezes, fork loaded with the grilled chicken, and he carefully sets it back down on the plate. “Do you want kids now?” he asks, clearly unsure as to how this even came up. They were just talking about the draft prospects for this upcoming year and who the Falconers should hopefully have an eye on.

It’s not that Jack doesn’t want kids now. He wants kids… Not all the time, not when they’re exhausted on roadies, not when they’re rushing to get out the door for practice. Kids don’t just exist when it’s convenient, though, and Jack knows that. He’s been thinking about this for a while. “Maybe,” he says, spearing a carrot and dragging it through the gravy. “Just wondering where you were at, eh?”

“Well right now we’re both full time NHL players,” Kent says, smiling in a way that almost looks forced, “so I figure kids are probably out of the question until it’s a different case.” He brings his fork to his mouth, chewing methodically as he doesn’t meet Jack’s eyes.

As Kent keeps his eyes on his plate, Jack realizes what this means to Kent, what this means for them. When they were first engaged, they decided to move to Providence because it was the best place to start a family, and they haven’t talked about that since then.

Carefully, Jack starts, “If we adopted a kid who was in school, already, that would work with most all of our practices. We have a home gym, so there’s nothing to worry about there in terms of leaving. For home games, there are always babysitters. I’m sure Thirdy or Marty could recommend someone if we asked them to.” He knows it’s a lot, knows that he’s making it out to seem so easy, but there has to be a way for this to work out.

“What about the roadies?” Kent asks. He’s looking at Jack now, and there’s a kind of hope in his gaze.

“I know you don’t like it, but we could try getting a nanny. But I would ask time off, I think.” Jack pauses, he hasn’t talked with any management about this, but he knows the Falcs have paternity leave. He doesn’t know the specifics, and he’d need to get more information on it, but it’s a start. They have to start somewhere.

Eyebrows drawn together, Kent offers, “We could look at adoption agencies in the offseason. These things can take a while to get going; it can be years before anything happens.”

Now or never. Jack takes a deep breath, tries to steady himself, and asks, “What if I wanted us to think about adopting Gabrielle?”

Kent freezes. Jack can’t tell if it’s a positive reaction or not. “Little Falconers Gabrielle,” he states.

“Yeah,” Jack agrees, reaching for his napkin to peel apart into little strips. So maybe he should have waited for a better time or tried to make this not some random crusade for adoption, but it’s too late now.

Steadily ripping the napkin to pieces, he explains, “Tina talked with me about it for a while. I think she kind of realized I was thinking… I wasn’t thinking about it, more like I was thinking about it being a possibility for us. And she’s been a foster parent for several years with the agency, and she said we were really good with her. With Gabrielle.” It feels like too much, like Jack’s been hoping for this thing that can’t ever happen, and he’s so stupid for thinking it could ever work out in the first place.

Across the table, Kent is blinking, looking a little dazed. “We’d have to get the home check done, of course,” he starts, already breaking the process down step by step. “And we’d need to meet with Tina and Gabrielle outside of Little Falconers, but I know Molly had Tina’s number; that shouldn’t be hard to set up. I’ll want to take time off, too, of course, but George should be able to get us everything in terms of paternity leave.”

Jack looks up carefully, to where Kent has pulled out his phone and is typing down notes to himself of things they’ll need to do. “Are we really going to do this?” he asks, even though he hopes he knows what the answer is.

Kent stops, leaving his phone on the table as he reaches over to cover one of Jack’s hands with his own. “I really, really want to.”

-x-

When they bring Gabrielle home for the first time, Kent cries. It’s been four months since they started looking into the adoption process, sped up by Tina helping them work through the agency. He just can’t believe how lucky he is, that he gets this many good things in his life.

“I told myself I wasn’t going to do this,” Kent whispers, wiping carefully at his eyes.

Wrapping his arms around his husband’s waist, Jack tucks his chin in the juncture of where Kent’ neck meets collarbone. “I almost cried when you were reading her a bedtime story,” he confesses, thinking of how Kent had perched carefully on the edge of the princess bedspread that Gabrielle had picked out. “It’s hard to think about how we got here, eh?”

They haven’t been seventeen in a long time, but the memories can still be fresh. Kent knows exactly what he means. “Good thing I reached out,” Kent answers, turning and tilting his head to capture Jack’s lips. 

Jack can’t express how grateful he is that Kent reached out, that they decided to try being friends again all those years ago. “I’m so glad you did.” He doesn’t know where they’d be without it, whether they would have found their way back to each other eventually or if he’d be alone in the apartment, or maybe on his way to dinner with Shitty and Lardo or something. He wonders if he’d know what he’s missing.

“When are your parents going to come in?” Kent asks, trying to plan out the next few weeks. His mom wants to come down, too, and Kelly said she’d be there the moment they had room for her, so he’ll need to get back to them soon.

“Maman said their flight leaves Monday morning, which gives us the weekend alone. They’re only staying for a few days, Maman has a charity banquet coming up, and Papa promised her that’d help out with it, but they weren’t going to miss meeting their first grandchild.” Jack can’t help but grin when he thinks about it.

Kent laughs, thinking about how truly insane it is. His mom has a grandchild, his sister has a niece, all because he has a _child_. He and Jack have a child. “We’ve got a kid, babe.” He’d wanted to come to Providence to raise a family, but the concrete existence of it as opposed to an abstract idea seems foreign. There’s a little girl in the bedroom down the hall, the bedroom that used to be a guest bedroom and is now hers, and she’s theirs.

Smothering his answering smile into Kent’s skin, Jack kisses his shoulder. “I thought I was crazy when I first brought it up,” he confesses. He’d felt so out of his depth, contemplating fatherhood.

“I was so scared we wouldn’t get her,” Kent responds, exchanging one of Jack’s fears for his own. “It seemed like such a long shot, that we’d actually get the chance to be parents.” It still doesn’t seem real, but tomorrow they’ll wake up and Gabrielle will still be here. She’s not going anywhere. “We did it, Jack.”

Looking down the hall, Jack sees the soft yellow glow from the nightlight they’d placed in the hall bathroom. “We did it,” he repeats, smiling softly.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone's wondering how Jack and Kent adopted a child in America who spoke fluent French, Gabrielle's parents were American citizens who lived in France as professors. They moved back to Providence when one of them got a job at Brown, died in a tragic accident, and neither had family. Is it plausible? Not really, no. Do I care? Not really, no.


End file.
